WWII Dogfight Evidence Found in Italy: Page 2

American pilots from the 324th Fighter Group flew an armed reconnaissance mission near Rome, before being caught by 8–10 German Messerschmitt Bf 109s.

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D-DayAnniversary:OntheGroundinLivingColor:Photos

View Caption+#1: June 6, 2011 --

Sixty-seven years ago today, 160,000 Allied troops constituted principally of American soldiers stormed the beaches of Normandy, France, in an effort to dislodge the Nazi occupation that had gripped France and ultimately accelerate the conclusion of World War II.
This 50-mile stretch of French coastline would set the stage for what was one of the most consequential days of the entire Allied offensive on Germany: D-Day.
On the anniversary of this historic occasion, take a look at some rare color photos of the events leading up to D-Day and its immediate aftermath.
In this photo, American troops march in an English park prior to the D-Day assault. Allied troops mustered in the United Kingdom and crossed the English Channel on June 6 to launch Operation Neptune, the largest amphibious invasion in world history, which was part of Operation Overlord, the name of the campaign to dislodge Germany from Western Europe.

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Although the Allies had stormed the beaches with overwhelming force, that doesn't mean they weren't met with a fierce resistance.
An abandoned German machine gun appears in this photo.

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The first wave of American troops landed at dawn on June 6. The weather had been poor for the past few days, which worked to the Allies' advantage. Believing that the weather conditions reduced the chances of an imminent invasion, some German officers had even taken leave the weekend prior. With German forces at reduced strength, the Allies attacked, gaining a foothold along the French coast.
The ruins of the Palais de Justice in St. Lo, a town further inland in France, appears here. The remains of a red fire engine rest in the foreground.

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As Allied forces pushed their way further into occupied territory, they captured Nazi soldiers at a rate of 30,000 per month.
A contingent of Nazi P.O.W.'s appears in this photo.

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After the Allies overwhelmed German forces along the coastline, northern France was turned into a combat zone.
A maintenance worker services an American P-47 Thunderbolt in a makeshift airfield in the French countryside.

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Allied victory was met with support and gratitude from the occupied French civilians.
In August 1944, Paris was liberated. Celebrations ensue in this photo.

Dealy was undoubtedly the most famous of the three pilots who were shot down. Born in Nashville, Tenn., he was one of five brothers who all served in the the U.S. Army Air Corps during 1942-1944. He was even featured with his two pilot brothers taking the enlistment oath in a widely shown MGM documentary.

“James (‘Jim’), Robert (‘Bob’), and John (‘Jack’) were pilots, Arthur (‘Art’) was a bombardier and William (‘Bill’) was a technical sergeant. All five brothers served in the Italian theater and all came home alive,” Dan Dealy, James’ nephew and a former U.S. Navy pilot himself, told Discovery News.

While identical twins John and Arthur were captured and taken into German POW camps, Robert and James were lucky enough to be helped out by Italian families after they were shot down.

“In a very real sense, I owe those Italian families a deep gratitude,” Dan Dealy said. "They put their own lives at risk to help my father Bob and my uncle Jim."

Archival research carried out by Vincenzo Frateschi from Sonnino, Latina, and James Dealy’s detailed diary about those dramatic events, allowed Ballini and colleagues to find the Italian who first helped Dealy as he touched ground. It was an 8-year-old boy named Enrico (“Enrichetto”) Onorati.

“I was just a child, but I knew exactly what to do," Onorati, who is now 77, recalled. "I knew the Germans were rushing to the site, so I hid the pilot and his parachute in a nearby haystack.”

When the Germans arrived, searching for the pilot, they started shooting into the brush and haybales around where he was hiding.

“My family, my neighbors, we were all scared,” Onorati said. "Had the Germans found out we were hiding the American pilot, they would have shot us all."

As the German soldiers finally left, Onorati’s family called one neighbor, Rocco De Angelis, who could speak English.

Lt. Dealy was then hidden by the De Angelis family until he was able to return to his squadron. It was actually Dan Dealy’s father, Robert, who picked James up to return him to their fighter group base.

“Both my dad and Jim became engineers after the War,” Dan Dealy said. They had long careers in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, continuing to contribute to the post-war growth and development of the United States."

James Dealy died in 2009, at 93. In the early 1990s, he donated his evasion clothing and a German machine gun to the Air Force museum at Warner Robins Air Force Base in Georgia.

“He had picked up the machine gun and an officer’s dagger while riding a donkey with the Army troops that were escorting German POW’s back towards the allied lines -- just before being picked up by my dad,” Dan Dealy said.

He added that the Dealys are planning to donate most of their family's World War II documents, photos and letters to the National World War II museum in New Orleans.

Meanwhile, Ballini and colleagues will try to recover the remains of O’Brien and Dealy’s planes. They also would be extremely interested in contacting the relatives of O'Brien and Kusch.